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.i«ES 11 THE SAND. 



LIBR'ARy>Of C0WGRE3iSs 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LINES IN THE SAND 



LINES IN THE SAND 



BY , / 

RICHARD EP DAY 






SYRACUSE, N. Y. 
Published by John T. Roberts 

. FOR THE 

Syracuse Chapter of Delta Upsilon 
1878 




9^ 






Copyright, 1878, by 
RICHARD E. DAY. 



PUBLISHERS' APOLOGY. 

/~\UR only reason for collecting in a volume a few 
^^ of our brother's early miscellaneous productions 
in verse is the conviction that their merits entitle them 
to more extensive and lasting appreciation than they 
could possibly attain through casual publication in the 
local press, and a belief that many of his personal 
friends, for whom this limited edition is chiefly in- 
tended, will be pleased to possess the little book as 
a souve7iir. 

The poems have been selected at random from a 
large budget placed at our disposal ; the arrangement 
is, with few exceptions, in the order of production. 



VI PUBLISHERS APOLOGY. 

Most of them were written while the author was pur- 
suing a University course of study, supporting himself 
in the mean time by teaching, and performing sundry 
other literary work. 

Delta Upsilon Hall, 

Syracuse, 31st May, 1878, 



CONTENTS. 



Ad Amorem, 

After the Centennial, . 

April Wedding, The . 

Bird, Lute, and Cloud, . ■ . 

Builders, 

Byron, . . . . 

Christmas, 

Concluding Lines, 

Confidence, 

Consolations of the New Faith, 

Crucify, 

Dawn Delayed, 

Death, 

Diem Perdidimus, . 

Epigram, An . 

Farewell, A . . - 

Fool's Choice, The 

Forest Musings, . 

Frost Work, 

Ideals, . . 

Jacob's Ladder, 



8 

36 

42 

65 
61 

33 

82 

no 

76 

9 
23 
46 

32 

50 

55 
25 
5 
38 
78 

19 



viil CONTENTS. 




Leaves, October, 1876, 


34 


Leaves, October, 1877, 


71 


Life, .... 


31 


Lines in the Sand, 


I 


Lothario, 


45 


May Morning, 


52 


Medium, The . 


73 


Mens Omnia Vincit, 


3 


Meum Mihi, . 


40 


Mneme and Elpis, 


88 


My Treasures, 


14 


Niagara, .... 


28 


Rain at Sea, . 


81 


Shells, .... 


41 


Shreds of Reverie, 


. 48 


Sonnet to the Future, A 


107 


Sonnet to H , A . 


106 


Story, A . 


95 


Summer Noon, 


. 63 


To a Goldfinch, . 


108 


Two Secre'is, . 


12 


Tyndall to the Singing Flame, . 


68 


Vindication, A 


66 


Weavers and the Cupids, The . 


85 


Within, The . 


43 


Who Shuns the Light doth Court 


THE Gloom, 17 



LINES IN THE SAND. 



limes intSeSantr, 

WHILE Life's strong ocean hushed its restless 
throbs, 
While crept its tides into their caves with sobs, 
I've loved to kneel, and on the strand 

Write many a vow and many a hope 
And many an aspiration grand ; 
Then wander on the pebbly slope 
Till tide expunged my passion and my vow — 
Till Time smoothed out such wrinkles from his brow. 

'Twas some relief to stray from men apart, 
And make the sands a copy of my heart, 
To mix the cadence of the seas 
With my lament or vocal joy, 
To mix the ocean's sympathies 

With fears that sink or hopes that buoy, 
I 



2 LINES IN THE SAND. 

To pledge my recreant soul to truth again, 
And wait the sanction of his soul's amen. 

'Twas not in vain ; for I a charm have learned, 
That soothes me when betrayed, by Fortune spumed ; 
Nor vain again these lines to trace, 

If thou shalt learn, when visions cheat. 
To hide thee close in Art's embrace, 

And spurn the world from 'neath thy feet. 
I mourned — and Poesy hath set me free. 
Thou mournest ? She hath solace too for thee. 

And yet, though never mourner bless this line. 
Nor warm his heart in beams that fall from mine, 
Should one kind critic, 'mid the throng 

That passes ere the tide comes in, 
But read the song within my song, 
Not profitless my work hath been ; 
For though no name is joined in weal or ill 
With these sad rhymes, they're dedicated still. 



MENS OMNIA VINCIT. 



Mtn^ (Bmnia Vimit 

ALL things are conquered by the high resolve, 
'Tis action's essence, action's soul and core. 
So doth the captive wheel of fate revolve 
That genius gathers what it won before. 

Whoe'er has heard the notes of fame, and felt 
The twisted leaflets press his weary brow, 
Was victor when beneath the stars he knelt 
And told to heav'n ambition's early vow. 

Tho' torrent streams oppose their noisy wrath, 
And thunders bid Ambition's voice be still, 
Yet mountains shall be crumbled in his path. 
And storms retreat before the human will. 

Not, like Mazeppa on a reinless steed. 
Is ma 1 bound captive to a hopeless state ; 
For destiny he spurs, or checks his speed. 
And vaults to glory on the back of fate. 



LINES IN THE SAND. 

The heav'ns are opened to a daring soul, 
The clouds are parted by the eagle's flight ; 
The zenith is alone man's worthy goal, 
And stars are but to serve his path with light. 

He builds too low " who roofs his temple in, 
He builds too low " who builds but to the stars ; 
And he who rests content if heav'n he win, 
May find the golden gates his prison-bars. 



FOREST MUSINGS. 



WHO loves not into forest depths to stray, 
Where sinks in mellow gloom the golden day — 
The soft, uncertain light which trembles o'er 
The diver's path on ocean's threshing-floor, 
Or holy rays, descending through the high 
Cathedral window, tempered to the kneeler's eye ? 

The air and earth with energy are rife : 
Around me moves the masquerade of life ; 
It gushes in the robin's blithesome song. 
It surges thro' the maple, free and strong. 
Its warm blood thro' a thousand arteries sweeps. 
For here doth Nature's heart beat strong, tho' Nature 
sleeps. 

God buildeth here a temple to himself, 
'Thout sound of hammer or the chink of pelf; 



6 LINES IN THE SAND. 

Not half so grand St. Peter's columns rise, 
Less gracefully its spires salute the skies. 
No impious offering this of mitred knaves, 
Its wealth distilled from sweat of hinds and blood of 
slaves ! 

When Greeks, Prometheus-like, the heavens trod, 
Stole fire and stole the functions of a god. 
When Grecian Fancy her bright colors wove. 
Fauns, satyrs, naiads lurked in every grove. 
They're gone ; but, in the fountain and the tree, 
A presence haunts the poet still, haunts even me. 

Ere men, by science taught, their dream-born love 

Had spurned, from Persia's far enchanted shore 

To Caledonia's glens, the faeries' reign 

Was o'er the wild-wood ; here they led their train ; 

Their zephyr music broke the forest calm. 

Their light steps beat the sound on many a leaflet's palm 

Tho' Reason shatter Fancy's rainbow crown, 

And rudely sweep her cobweb castles down, 

Enchantment lingers still in every dell ; 

She broke the wand, but could not break the spell ; 

Titania and Oberon are here ; 

Their charm is on my heart, their voice is on mine ear. 



FOREST MUSINGS. 

Oft in the wood has knelt God's holy seer, 

While inspiration's song fell on his ear. 

Earth fades, and Heaven gathers round him now : 

A harp angelic seems each waving bough ; 

'Tis not the sound of leaves, but noise of wings ; 

The wild-bird carols free, and lo ! an angel sings ! 



LINES IN THE SAND. 



THERE'S a Vestal more fair than the Vestals of 
yore; 
I've pondered her doctrines, I've lisped in her lore ; 
A secular priestess ordained from above. 
Her temple each heart consecrated to love. 

Her mysteries never the vulgar may view; 

Her rites are the same that our first parents knew ; 

The flame on her altar, in Paradise fired 

When they fell, blazes still and has never expired. 

She preaches to hearts, not to logical ears ; 
Her offerings are kisses, her baptism tears ; 
Bright eyes are her lamps, and the worshiper bows 
'Mid the music of whispers and incense of vows. 

O, sad little bigot ! She makes the heart bleed 
That sneers at her service or laughs at her creed ; 
Who rebels 'gainst her rubric she dooms not to death, 
For a kiss brings the heretic back to his faith. 



CONSOLATIONS OF THE NEW FAITH. 



aron^olation^ of if^t jaeb dFa(t5» 

" You and I shall (have) fade(d), like streaks of morning 
cloud, into the infinite azure of the past." 

T/ic Bel/as^ Revelator. 

WHAT'S the life of yon cloud, for a moment re- 
vealed 

To the eye, 
As it waves its white wing o'er the dense azure field 

Of the sky ? 
'Tis but spray flung to heaven by ocean, the crown- 
Aye the breath 
Of a billow, that soon in the trough shall sink down 
It calls death. 

'Tho' I dot for a moment the awful expanse, 

I but seem; 
Walk in grief's solemn measure or passion's sweet trance 

'Tis a dream ; 



lO LINES IN THE SAND. 

Talk of duty and hope, toil for fame's thrilling shout, — 

In a shroud ; 
'Tis a song, 'tis a laugh, a few heart-beats, then out, — 

Like a cloud. 

Sad and lone is yon cloud in the canopy drear, 

Lone and sad ; 
For the sky cannot love it, the sun cannot cheer 

Or make glad ; 
For 'tis not of the sun, tho' it plunge in his flame 

Bright and strong. 
Nor the sky, but of ocean, and ocean shall claim 

It ere long. 

Sadder far this sad heart, while grim fate bids it stay 

'Mid the waste 
Of this desolate life, where its pleasures decay 

Ere it taste. 
Pale with terror, I hang o'er the dark, sounding wave 

Of that sea; 
Ah ! the infinite life which hath borne me my grave 

Soon shall be. 



TWO SECRETS. ^^ 



I MAY never behold thee, blue ocean, 
Never list to thy deep waters' roll ; 
All too feebly thy music and motion 

Fancy forms on the sense of the soul ; 
But I've heard of the tides ebbing, swelling, 

Of the dull, weary wash of the main ; 
And the moan to the bending skies telling 
The tale of thy bosom's calm pain. 

Yet I've stood by a sea in its dashing — 

By an ocean more calm and sublime ; 
I have heard the sad sound of its splashing. 

Of its billows I've heard the sad chime ; 
Well I know that its currents are stronger, 

That more solemn -and grand is its roar, 
That the sweep of its coast-line is longer, 

That it beats on some infinite shore. 



12 LINES IN THE SAND. 

'Tis the heart with its pulsing and leaping 

And chafing which never subsides ; 
'Tis the heart when affection is sweeping 

Its surface and stirring its tides. 
"Waves of anguish roll on — ah, their madness — 

Tides of longing rush up from the deep ; 
Panting heart, sobbing heart, ah, thy sadness ! 

Weary heart, all too weary to sleep. 

This poem the last wavelet, dying, 

Has laid, like a shell, at my feet ; 
And the same dreary chant it is sighing 

Which the lips of its ocean repeat. 
Of the lustre emotion threw round it 

None the breath of the critic has left, 
Like a shell, gone the sea-dew which crowned it, 

Of its glistening beauty bereft. 

Thoughts like sea-birds that roam, resting never, 

Mem'ries drifting, like weeds, to the strand, 
Fears that move the dark waters forever, 

Waves of pain softly beating the sand; 
Hopes, like flickering beacons, low burning, 

Sighs that float through the heart's tender psalm. 
Love can still ev'ry cry, ev'ry yearning, 

And whisper to tempests a calm. 



TWO SECRETS. I3 

Now I carry thy secret, blue ocean, 

And thy secret is hke to mine own ; 
I have read the deep cause of thy motion 

And the prayer that comes up in thy moan : 
'Tis for love thou art waihng to heaven, 

Love alone can bring peace to thy breast ; 
Tides that surge in my bosom have given 

A key to unlock thy unrest. 



14 LINES IN THE SAND. 



Ml^ Creature* 

ONE damp, drear day there came to me from heaven, 
Adown a rainbow harp in joy 
Descending 
A hope, and clouds that draped my eyes were riven, 
As glad I yielded to her coy 
Befriending ; 
O'er seas of glass she led my willing feet, 
And then came jealous Death our sweet 
Dream ending. 

He chilled the clay I loved to marble cold. 
Yet wrapt decay in Beauty's pall 
To mask it, 
And left me ling'ring by the saintly mold. 

That breathes no answering word to all 
I ask it ; 



MY TREASURE. 15 

For Death has stoPn the gem — the fleeting wraith, 
I deck with evergreens of faith 
The casket. 

There is a curtained chamber in the soul. 

There safe I've garnered and for aye 
Life's token; 
Where stillness holds a vast and deep control, 

And whispers, awed, die hushed away- 
Unspoken ; 
Where shadows dance to mem'ry's yellow ray, 
In twilight ne'er the flush of day 
Hath broken. 

Here lifeless Hope, from blemish of decay 

The heart's pure air thy beauty's trace 
Is keeping ; 
The heart's sweet rays across thy features play 
Like Ocean's o'er a mermaid's face 
While sleeping. 
But ah ! no smile of hers to warm this place, 
No smile of olden love to chase 
My weeping. 

Here let me quaff" oblivion's honeyed wine. 

Back ! cruel world ! thou com'st not here 
To sever 



1 6 LINES IN THE SAND. 

My spirit fingers from their spirit shrine 

And drive me from this sacred bier. 
Ah! never 
Shall Time or Fate our last embrace untwine. 
Fair, perished Hope, I clasp thee mine, 
Forever ! 



WHO SHUNS THE LIGHT DOTH COURT THE GLOOM. 1 7 



OTli&o Z\)mxss ti)t Efg^t Botl) (Eouxt tje (!^lciom, 

WHO shuns the hght doth court the gloom ; 
Who shuts out God prepares his tomb, 
And sets the stone which seals its mouth ; 
Who opes his windows to the North 
Ne'er feels the radiant sun come forth, 
Which waits to greet him in the South. 

We build our house 'mid clouds and mists, 
We fashion fetters for our wrists. 
Then mourn the ruthless bonds of fate. 
JVe reared these walls which hedge us in, 
We forged these bolts and chains of sin, 
We mured the soul in dungeon grate. 

No beams can kimine moral death, 
No clouds can darken perfect faith ; 
We cast the shadows, God the light. 
Oh ! what to him these stormy years 

2 



LINES IN THE SAND. 

Who finds a rainbow in his tears, 

And learns that tears may quicken sight ! 

Oh ! would we leave these souls ajar, 
His smile would flood them like a star. 
And melt our winter into spring; 
'Twould kindle faith's extinguished fire. 
And hearts, like stones by Orpheus' lyre 
Once touched, forever more would sing. 

What captive hates the ray which falls 
In mercy on his pallid walls. 
And strives his joyless heart to win ? 
O weeping captive, chained to doubt, 
Unbar thy soul, drive shadows out, 
And let the God of sunshine in. 



Jacob's ladder. 19 



faceting mati^tx. 

SOMETIMES in dreams God's thoughts we 
scan — 
The thoughts that bridge the coming years— 
The bridge that hnks with ghttering span 
The future's dusky piers. 

So Jacob in the long ago, 

In prophet's robe of starry beams, 
Lay fast'ning Heayen to Earth below 

With web he wove from dreams. 

Adown the little web which swings 
Between my dreamy soul and Thee, 

O God, thine angel glides and brings 
Of Jacob's dream the key. 

It was that perfect age whose hue 
Gilds many a myth-land of the past 



LINES IN THE SAND. 

And future, on the prophet's view- 
That swept serene and vast. 

A land tow^ard w^hich we float on tears, 

Scarce known to Thought's knight-errant lance, 

The hope, the agony of years, 
Loomed forth in tropic trance. 

It is not day, it is not night. 

But something gladder, holier still ; 

The atmosphere is drenched with light. 
Baptized each peak and hill. 

Harp-strains in torrent burst descend. 

While skyward leap, like fountains strong, 
Earth's noises. Lo ! they meet, and blend 

Mankind's triumphal song; 

While manhood's blood and woman's tears. 
The prophet's song, the martyr's sighs, 

The hero's hopes, the freeman's fears 
One pillared ladder rise. 

Amid the throng whose glancing feet 

Swept down the gleaming strands he wove. 

See ! faces old ! See ! faces sweet — 
Faith, Hope, Truth, Goodness, Love ! 



JACOB'S LADDER. 21 

And one full many a lip has prayed 

To welcome in her hour of birth, 
Peace, floated down and gently laid 

Her branch upon the earth. 

That hour more beauteous seemed the real, 

Transfigured to its Eden youth, 
While clear and strong stood the ideal 

In bold relief of truth. 

Ideas darting, like the stars. 

Through man's dark firmament a ray, 

Dissolve, as Morn the east unbars. 
In yellow waves of day. 

For what are stars if Helios now 
Ride up the heav'ns on fulgent car ? 

A million gems fall from his brow, 
And every gem a star. 

Now Reason treads where Fancy trod ; 

Lo ! Reason leads where Faith has led, 
Till on the bosom of his God 

He rests his weary head. 

And they who in the garden go 

To sweat, and bear on aching breast 



22 LINES IN THE SAND. 

The world's dark sin, the world's long woe, 
Partake the world's deep rest. 

And saw he Israel ere he woke, 

Transformed to nobler life and creed. 

Triumphant o'er its curse and yoke, 
From scorn of nations freed ? 

On towers of stone man seeks to rise 
No more above the floods he fears ; 

But ever toward the beck'ning skies 
A Spirit-Babel rears. 



CRUCIFY. 23 



THE heart is blind : its tendrils bursting forth 
Entwine alike the good and bad of earth, 
And, severed by the will's harsh pruning-knife, 
They ever sadly drip their sap of life. 

Then pain is dumb, not dead, though pride its wail 
Has choked and clad the heart in worldly mail ; 
A pulse of fire in Earth's calm breast doth beat, 
And yon white star is pale with very heat. 

The motto of our lives is crucify ; 
Each day some fond, sweet thing we doom to die, 
'Till over mem'ry's grave-yard, gleaming white 
With skeletons, Golgotha could Ave write. 

To ev'ry heart, heard by that heart alone, 
There falls a voice from heav'n in gracious tone : 
Two words it utters, "crucify ! " and " climb I " 
In these is all of life that is sublime. 



24 LINES IN THE SAND. 

Where, seen through clouds, as through a mountain 

pass. 
The blue expanse spreads like a lake of glass, 
Where to thy gaze benignly arches down 
The infinite, a path leads to a crown. 

From crowns we lose He weaves the crowns we gain ; 
Our cup of joy distils He from our pain; 
The azure path which climbs upon the skies 
And wanders through the stars is — sacrifice. 

Con not that weary word at eve and morn, 

Like some old book with pages thumbed and torn ! 

Go, set thy sail to heaven's favoring breath. 

And sell the world for that which mocks at death. 

To build thy life in beauty be thy work ! 

Within, and not without, the foemen lurk ; 

The beasts that threat thee sleep within the lair 

Of thine own breast, and thou must seek them there. 



THE fool's choice. 25 



" T IFE Is a banquet Nature spreads for man, 

I J And spreads but once. Then who her fruit and 
wine 
Would scorn, are fools and know not Nature's plan. 
To feast is worship and to eat divine. 
We lay no sweeter gift upon her shrine 
Than laughter. This is homage, true, devout. 
Then let the dance and revel still be mine — 
Till Death shall put my little taper out. 
Till life to ashes sinks. And yet sometimes I doubt. 

" For whence the hope which warbles o'er the grave, 
That time shall fill again our glass with sand ? 
Why list we ever to the splashing wave ? 
Why wander ever up and down the strand ? 
Why reach we out so oft a searching hand, 
To try what shivering storms the silence thresh, 
To clasp the darkness of that nether land, 



26 LINES IN THE SAND. 

Until some outer blast blows icy-fresh, 
And then shrink frightened back within our walls of 
flesh ? 

" Delusion. Springs no flower from the tomb 

Save those Aflection's hand has planted there. 

We call — our voices echo down the gloom, 

We gaze — our torches sicken in its air; 

Yet walks the Christian down the silent stair. 

While harsh the ever-swinging portal jars, 

With smile of peaceful trust, as one may wear 

Who seeks his rest at eve by light of stars — 

Till birds salute the sun thro' night's dissolving bars. 

" 'Twill never dawn. There is no time but time. 
No other space than that wherein we dwell. 
Than pleasure's bloom no higher heaven we climb, 
Than its decay there is no deeper hell. 
Then, hopes that lure toward empty skies, farewell ! 
Down ! fears that bay my heart incessant, down ! 
Joy rings a silvery Lethe from her bell. 
And in her cup the thoughts that plague I'll drown. 
Come, Liberty, and crown me with my selfhood's 
crown." 

Thus spake the atheist. The Spirit heard, 
And noiseless stole away. Ah! 'twiU implore 



THE fool's choice. 27 

With sad, sweet voice, — the shadows shall be stirred 

By holy God-light, creeping thro' the door 

Of that dark bosom — never — nevermore. 

He wooed the goddess. Pleasure, fools applaud, 

And clasped a cloud, as fools have clasped before, 

He sought and won the liberty they laud — 

Void vacancy which weeps an ever-vanished God. 



28 LINES IN THE SAND. 



MAJESTIC archer! Scarce more swiftly fly 
Electric rivers, in their earthward flow, 
That leap thro' sulphur spray th' abyss of sky, 

Than shoots the current hurtling from his bow. 
What pearls of mist his temples crown and strew 

His flowing locks, his locks that glisten wet 
And white where time shakes down its ancient snow ! 

Yet shines more radiant still his coronet 
When on that brow the sun his seven gems has set. 

Fast hold his winged steeds their rushing flight, 
Or poise in air above the awfal steep ; 

While glints his mottled livery on the light, 
And rose-cut brilliants from his bosom peep, 

As doth a belt of night the heavens sweep 
And dash its star-foam o'er the milky- way ; 

And, when the precipice his coursers leap, 
Shakes not the beaten earth beneath their play, 

While fires internal feel their hoofs and dance and 
sway? 



NIAGARA. 29 

Now dies the distant thunder on the ear,— 

And Proteus-hke he doth new image take : 
He lays aside his gold and azure here, 

To don the dappled coat of ocean-snake, 
With creamy whiteness falling, flake by flake, 

Adown the sea-green lustre of his hide ; 
Then moves he swiftly, proudly to the lake, 

While o'er my fancy, snake-like, visions gUde, 
For on his scaly back, behold, the centuries ride! 



Oh, thou canst tell, eternal, awful tide. 
What forces tore or wore this limy grave. 

Did some fierce Samson tear earth's jaws so wide. 
And lay these rocks thy stony path that pave, 

Or did the ceaseless ages beat and lave 
Their prison with the fragile surf of time 

Until a course was eaten by the wave — 
When lake to lake sent forth a watery chime. 

And thou, O Stream, new-born, beganst thy march 
sublime ? 

Thy lips do swallow up my tiny voice. 

While round me gathers awe as calm and chill 

As thine own mist, and yet do I rejoice 
In thee, O boist'rous emblem of the wifl ; 

For thine the gush of life, the buoyant thrill 



3© LINES IN THE SAND. 

Of joy untamed, youth's laughter high and free. 
Then on ! and sing the song that mocks at ill : 

The sigh, the storm, the agony shall be 
Unknown until thy waters clasp the mournful sea. 

Ah ! type of time, thy surge the billowy crush 
Of centuries — I, gazing o'er the brink. 

Seem borne along the seething flood, the rush 
Of years. Nay, doomed river ; thou must sink 

Into the infinite, and it shall drink 
Thee up ; while I unmoved may hear thy tide 

In tumult rolling at my feet, nor shrink 
To see thy fateful waves, but view them glide 

With all a mortal's sadness, an immortal's pride. 



LIFE. 31 

Etfe. 

TO be, to conquer and to bow, 
To let sweet Patience light the brow 
And live within the awful now. 

To look on Virtue's front of snow 
Till ev'ry thought the heart doth know 
Shall to her perfect image grow. 

Within the breast God's shrine to raise, 
And when a brother's light decays, 
Renew his torch at our own blaze. 

To bear three score of years and ten 
A heart so warm 'twill flame again 
From every chilling touch of men. 

To clear from human eyes the dust, 
To melt from human hearts the crust, 
To cleave from human wills the rust. 

Truth's trump to blow so fast and high 
That hurrying notes leap out and fly 
Here — there — and all across the sky. 

To face the desert bare and black, 
To fright the wolves of terror back, 
And thro' the trackless trace a track. 



32 LINES IN THE SAND. 

Beats* 

TO bore life's heart, as fools oft bleed 
The maple's heart, that it may feed 
With lifetime's sap a moment's greed. 

To sport with Vice, as child might risk 
The horrid light that burns, a disk 
Of death, in eye of basilisk. 

To heap our shrine with fuel rare, 
And guard its flame with jealous care 
Until it dies for lack of air. 

To wall the bosom 'gainst the storms, 
And 'gainst the beam that fondly warms, 
Till mildew o'er the spirit forms. 

To stand where glows the conflict hot 
With folded arms, that battle not. 
But in their joints ignobly rot. 

To stifle in the aching throat 

A carol clear, whose humblest note 

Some lip in lonely hour might quote. 

To weigh the breath against the soul, 
To flee when scowling dangers roll. 
To shun the wave and strike the shoal. 



BYRON. 33 

OSOUL Promethean ! Heart of ^tna fire ! 
The sea thy brother, god-Uke art thy sire, 
The world thy song, humanity thy lyre. 

O fitful Light, one breathless hour unfurled, 
That shook'st thy comet glories o'er the world, 
Ere into the blue infinite wast hurled. 

We touch thy page— and feel the hot blood start. 
We feel the mingled pulse of life and art. 
We feel thee climb the Alp-lands of the heart. 

O poesy that hath its root in blood. 

The luscious flower of Passion's ruby bud !— 

A gulf-stream speeding thro' the world's chill flood. 

O life ! the fruit of Sin with Beauty wed, 
O many-colored life, where Passion bled 
O'er genius' milk-white stars a guilty red. 

O life whose morn was hotter than our noon, 

Whose mournful waves obeyed Love's madd'ning moon, 

Or swelled and foamed 'neath Hatred's black monsoon. 

O life that teachest from thy little span 
That creature-gods do -never fill nor can. 
With restful joy the restless being man. 



34 LINES IN THE SAND. 



OCTOBER, 1876. 

THE pulse of Summer sinketh low, 
And, rushing from the icy pole, 
Come shrieking winds. Ah ! well I know 
'Tis they my maple-leaves that stole 
Twelve months agone, and every breeze 
Their royal vesture from the trees 
That strips, strips something from my soul ; 

For I have loved their blooms, and seen 

New glories fledged for glories flown— 

The yellow bud to living green. 

The green to dying purple grown, 

A maple sunset: we were kin 

By sympathy, I felt, and in 

Their life wrought something of my own. 

In spring our hearts, like maples, bud 
With tender hopes. The summer through 



LEAVES. 35 

They brightly wave and drain our flood 
Of life, then sadly fade ; for who 
Feels not each year an inner death, 
When drift the leaves on autumn's breath, 
Or spangle earth with gory dew ? 

Ah, me ! the world is lorn and old, — 
And Nature loves no more her child, 
There's naught that seems not dark and cold ; 
The clouded sky, that yester smiled, 
Beats down to-day my leaden wings. 
When I aspire, and rudely flings 
My thoughts, like leaves, on tempests wild. 



$6 LINES IN THE SAND. 



THE princes gone who sat around thy board, 
Columbia, and drank the century's health. 
While fast the new wine of the West was poured. 
And sighed to view thy wealth — 
A golden hoard — 

Why, country mine, dost sit in tearful woe, 

Upon the day that crowns thee bride of Time ? 

Why droops this hour thy beauteous head so low, 
Ere dead the bell's sweet chime. 
The altar's glow ? 

It is the shriek of Freedom 'neath the fangs 
Of pride and hate, the plaint of injured Law, 

The plea of baffled Justice, as she hangs 
Her brow in shame, that draw 
Thy tears and pangs. 

The air which freemen breathe seems dense with doom; 
No patriot laughs to-day, while Murder drains 



AFTER THE CENTENNIAL. 37 

The blood of the oppressed, and in the gloom 
Of night some hand profanes 
Our martyr's tomb. 

Go we to Lexington, where late we burned 

Our incense — tears of joy ! Now shame we'll weep, 

And ask " the seven," if vain a king they spurned ; 
If vain their names we keep 
In hearts inurned. 

Tell them, above Potomac's towering bank 
Who slumber, all for naught their sacred toil ; 

Say — foul oppression ripens red and rank 
Upon the very soil 

Their blood that drank. 



38 LINES IN THE SAND. 



MY heart 
Has windows ; and their panes 
Shone once with fancy's liquid dews, 
In shapes and views 
More rich than temple stains 
Of art. 

Chill blows 
The world. Its winds it dashed 
In fury 'gainst the pictured scroll 
Of my warm soul : 
Fruits, ferns and flowers flashed — 
And froze. 

Device 
More grand what eye hath seen ? 
A path that mounts through flowers and trees, 
The clouds to seize, 
By light of stars whose sheen 
Is ice. 



FROST WORK. 39 

A place 
Of birds, wing-tipped v;ith fret 
Of frost, that keep their frozen May ; 
And in the spray 
Of stars is sweetly set 
A face. 

Mayhap 
I loved — and cherish now — 
That face, and strove for it to gain 
That high domain — 
With captured stars that brow 
To wrap. 

While storms 
Rage round me fierce, I gaze 
Upon this frost-work of the heart, 
And sad tears start 
Before this holy maze 
Of forms. 

O arts 
Of angels, we would fain 
Have heaven fashioned in the mold 
Of fancies old — 
Of things that silver- vein 
Our hearts. 



46 LINES IN THE SAND. 



imeum mi^L 

LESS sweet by far, I ween, 
The garden's fragrance than the breath that 
blows 
From yon blue violet that meekly grows 

For me 'mid grasses green. 
More beauty lives and dies in meanest gem, 
By flashes, if for me its opal sheen, 
Than burns in diadem 
Of kings. And I have seen 
My own pale star 'mid brighter stars ; for them 
Shall I //ly star contemn ? 



SHELLS. 41 



Sfiells. 



THE sunlight creeps, the sunHght flees 
O'er shells upon my table strown. 
O shells, ye are some distant sea's 

Young reveries — dreams dreamed in stone, 
The painted caskets of a moan. 

Ye are his day-dreams, richly fed 

With hope and joy, and when ye died, 

The soul that could not keep its dead 
Did cast you out on sorrow's tide, 
And sorrow told what shame would hide. 

Ye wrecks of fancies unfulfilled, 

I may not know what Ocean planned — 

What palace for his soul to build 
Of shells, ere broke the vision grand, 
And white lips laid you on the sand. 

Dead poems, sealed against mine art, 

Mute thoughts that round to Nature's rhyme. 

Doth not a sigh from Ocean's heart 
Along your cells make funeral chime ? 
It doth, and shall thro' all of time. 



42 LINES IN THE SAND. 



ONCE April joined a flower with June, 
While winds shrieked out a bridal tune, 
And wept the pitying cloud. 
Ill-omened match ! ill-fated bride ! 
March slew the lover at her side. 
And tender May, ere summer-tide. 
Prepared the flower a shroud. 



THE WITHIN 43 



FAITH turns the world to wine and bread, 
And only pangs the heart doth toll 
When Faith lies dead 
Upon the soul. 

I've seen Earth's bosom parched with drought 
And stripped of life ; yet souls embraced 
By arid doubt 
Show sadder waste. 

Dost fear when beacons sink in night ? 
More black thy soul than rayless sea 
If beacon-light 
Expire in thee. 

Oh ! sad the sea-gale's weary gust, 
And sad the sea-bird's weary notes 
When, wrecked, thy trust 
O'er heart-waste floats. 



44 LINES IN THE SAND. 

'Tis naught should birds for aye depart, 
And summers flee to ne'er return, 
If in the heart 
Love's solstice burn. 

When shrink these rays in wintry death, 
Thou'lt shiver ever in the air 

Of storms whose breath 
Makes Arctic there. 

As frigid breeze sweeps flood and pool 
Tfll plates of ice their waves invest, 
So life may cool 
The fervid breast. 

Be welcome, frost, though you should hide 
Our pulses, if some current hot 
Within us glide 
That freezeth not. 

Believe a God doth calmly wait. 

When beacons pale, believe they shine. 
Theirs treason's fate, 
Faith's harvest thine. 



LOTHARIO. 45 



I THINK the brook the breeze 
Doth love; for smiles that flash and then retreat, 
His airy wit and wanton frolics greet, 

His antics in the trees ; 
And when he bends a trembling kiss to steal 
With saucy grace, the murmurous laugh he sees 
And hears, doth all reveal. 

But he is false and flees, 
Forgetful now, away on noiseless heel, 

By blushing flower to kneel. 



46 LINES IN THE SAND. 



LIFE, thou art a darksome valley ; 
But the hills that o'er thee lean 
Bathe them in eternal sheen. 
There the baffled sunbeams rally; 
Thence into the vale they sally. 

Darkness is the gloom of dying; 
Sunlight is the truth we crave, 
That o'er man's forgotten grave 
God keeps sentry, — this replying 
To each voice 'mid shadows crying. 

Let me, skyward creeping, dashing, 
Linger half-way up the height. 
Where the morning meets the night, — 
Bright blades on black bucklers clashing, 
Sun-darts thro' Night's squadrons flashing. 

I would seize a shining quiver, 
From the armory of the sun, 



DAWN DELAYED. 47 

Drop its arrows one by one, 

Till they fell a golden river 

Where sad mortals grope and shiver. 

When will truth with lambent rafter 
Span th' Avemus where v/e dwell ? 
When will life's strong anthem swell, 
Mixed with seraph song — and laughter ? 
Down the slopes of the hereafter ? 

See ! The crimson dawn is stealing 
Through the thickets of the sky. 
See ! th' effulgence of his eye 
Wafts a halo and a healing, 
Gently falls on mortals kneeling. 



48 LINES IN THE SAND. 



SOMETIMES the world doth shift its hue, 
And something old seems passed away ; 
We meet to-days that never knew, 
Or have forgot their yesterday ; 
We breathe the air of other hope, 

And other stars send down a ray 
Across the path whereon we grope. 



Experience writeth on the heart's white page 
More in an hour than Fancy in an age. 



If poet thou, above the surge of song 

Thy storm-winged soul sublimely sweeps along. 



The glory of a face once glimpsed may make 
The humblest life heroic for its sake. 



SHREDS OF REVERIE. 49 

Plastic in thy hand and still, 
Fate awaits thy touch of skill — 
Life's the image of the will. 



Their brows alone are in the clouds 
Whose feet still press the earth. 



Hast felt the sense of sad, proud loneliness, 
When strayed thy path from other men's afar ? 
Hast walked at night with none thy steps to bless — 
Save God within a little peace to shed, 

And overhead 

A star ? 



5© LINES IN THE SAND. 



5rpiS fated thus, 

I If arm relax while Heaven lifts its goal 
In sight, the stone of Sisyphus 
Back on our toiling souls 
Forever rolls. 

Rovv' like a lark 
Blithe conscience in the morn a carol trills. 
'Tis noon, 'tis shadowy eve, and hark! 
Her voice the spirit chills 
Like whippoorwill's. 

With flame and spark 
'Neath resolution's torch our souls aspire; 
Then gusts of storm and gusts of dark 
Ride down the sky in ire 
And quench our fire. 

What mountain high — 
What depth, have we not sworn to scale — to sound, 



DIEM PERDIDIMUS. 5 I 

For flowers — for pearls, then from the sky- 
To sweep — or the profound 
To rise — encrowned ? 

By ocean sands 
We've lingered, lingered where the mountain towers, 
And dreamed of crowns, while braver hands, 
From sky's and ocean's bowers. 
Brought pearls, brought flowers. 

E'en while we grope 

Where night o'er buried vows and pledges looms, 

Our lifted wings shoot gleams of hope, 

Like fire-flies 'mid the glooms 

Above men's tombs. 

We would that God 
Remembered throbbing aspirations, not 
Their fruits, remembered that abroad 
We cast some seeds, forgot 
That they did rot. 



52 LINES IN THE SAND. 



iHag iteming* 

WINTRY sunrise, like an ember, 
Glows in skies as ashes gray ; 
But the hectic of December 
Is not like the blush of May. 

Hark ! the oriole's first matin 
Stirs the morning's prayerful calm ; 
Never saintly maid in Latin 
Chanted half so sweet a psalm. 

Flowers in every mystic chamber 
Beams dissolve and dews refine, 
Turning light to rose and amber. 
Turning water into wine. 

Through the apple -boughs are breaking 
Vernal snow-flakes into sight, 
Nature's torpid soul, awaking, 
Blossoms into green and white. 



MAY MORNING. 53 



Winters freeze the tunes of throstles, 
Stifling Summer's banquet call ; 
Then your gourmands grow apostles, 
Snows make penitents of all. 

Vain our spirits' proud endeavor 
Out of Nature's folds to rise; 
Spring's returning presence ever 
Draws us captive from the skies. 



When athwart the nerve's clear prism 
Drifts a hue or tone intense, 
Soul forgets the winter's schism, 
Bows to feel the kiss of Sense. 

'Mid this peaceful panorama 
Stand our lives deformed and mean. 
Heav'n and Earth prepare a drama, 
Man's personae, Heaven's scene. 

We're the actors ; Heav'n's still magic 
Drops the curtain, shifts the play, 
While our lives beat cold and tragic 
'Gainst the glories of a May. 

Spirit, be thou taught of Matter, 
By the love the robin saith, 



54 LINES IN THE SAND. 

By the rain-drops' pitying patter, 
By the jonquil's holy breath. 

Oh ! the mystery that bideth 
Under all the masks of things, 
Heart whose life thro' rosebud glideth. 
Heart whose joy the songster sings ! 

Heart of Nature, I would feel Thee 
Beating 'gainst this heart of mine, 
Through the glories which conceal Thee 
Sink into Thy peace Divine. 



A FAREWELL. 55 



YE are my friends ; and in your eyes 
My eyes translate the love ye feel, 
Mine ear translates it in your sighs, 

My hand in pressures warm and leal. 
Oh ! could we but the world ensnare 
Y/ith love like this — a love so rare, 
Forever haughty hearts would kneel. 

We've gathered oft to eat — to drink — 

The thought that feeds — the mirth that cheers, 

To ponder life, of death to think. 

To weep 'mid laughter, laugh 'm.id tears ; 

And every cherished voice will float. 

Like some old song's heart-echoed note, 
Adown the path of after years. 

Then ye to me and I to you, 

Within the conflict's roar and flash, 



56 LINES IN THE SAND. 

Will be a presence dear and true — 

Will be a voice above the crash 
Of storms that shout the conscience dumb, 
Of storms that smite the conscience numb, 

As hurricanes do smite the ash. 

Now who before the gusts would quail, 
So that he face them not alone ? 

For never yet victorious gale 

Hath o'er a prostrate hero blown. 

If 'mid the blackness and the strife. 

He felt a life that fed his life, 

He felt a hand that clasped his own. 

Yet when we part, will not the snows 

Of this cold earth, while storm-winds shout. 

Drift into many a breast that glows 

With friendship's fires and put them out ? 

Will all the sacred altar keep, 

While frosts of age thro' crevice creep? 

Ah ! some in roadside drifts will sink. 

Where winds will spread our winding sheet; 

And some press grandly on, nor think 
Whose forms lie hid beneath their feet ; 

And some at last will wander here, 

Perhaps, to shed an old man's tear. 



A FAREWELL. 

Yea, some may scale on bleeding knees 
Fame's mount to fame's eternal snows, 

May leap the cataract and seize 
On glory's edge its pallid rose. 

Well, if the flower they fondly clasp 

Dies not within the cheated grasp. 

The purple draught will any sip 

Which floats in Passion's chalice now ? 

Or haste to press with burning lip 

The scarlet fruit on pleasure's bough ? 

Who'll pluck a rainbow-petaled sin, 

Nor hear the serpent hiss within ? 

Stay ! Did I say this world's bleak snows 
Should into many a heart intrude ? 

'Twas false ; our flame no winter knows. 
Not aurs the love that, dolphin-hued, 

Shows bright to-night, at morn expires, 

No snows shall drift above our fires. 
Though blasts without may riot rude. 

Yet how diminutive the love 

That doth but shade a score of friends ! 
That never spreads its boughs above 

The drooping, multitude, nor sends 
Each day new rootlets lithe and free 
Into the soil like banyan tree. 

And evermore its arms extends. 



57 



58 LINES IN THE SAND. 

Then, like an earnest brotherhood, 

We'll seize our swords and drop our foils ; 

We'll love the true, we'll seek the good, 
"We'll sing to life's mad billowy broils 

A song of life till disappears 

Men's frown in smiles, their smile in tears. 
O humankind, thou need'st our toils. 

For One whose words thou wilt not scorn 
(And oh ! methinks the world He knew). 

Looked forth upon the whitening corn. 
And said the laborers were few. 

And they are few to-day who break 

His bread and pour his love to slake 
The thirst of Gentile and of Jew. 

The world hath work for who hath wit. 
Or who can pity souls that ache. 

Or who will write a word unwrit, 

Or who will die for conscience's sake. 

Before us lies a sounding fray; 

We consecrate ourselves to-day. 

To-morrow brand and shield we take. 

And when each night the trumpets call, 
While Truth proclaims some victory hers, 

Come we in pride or not at all, 
We bear away no broken spurs. 



A FAREWELL. 59 

Far better on the field to lie, 
Beneath the monumental sky, 
Where Glory lays her worshipers. 

Not all the monuments that rise 

O'er graves, are clay, which Time doth fling 
Low as the clay it glorifies; 

For flowers firom out a tomb may spring, 
To speak for lips now mute beloAv, 
And swept to earth by Time, they strow 

A fadeless fragrance o'er his wing. 

The deed we do, the life we live, 

The thought we think, the fire we feel, 

The work we will, the gift we give. 
The faith we found, the hurt we heal, 

Translated into something strange. 

That cannot die, that cannot change, 
Shall stir the world with clarion peal. 

And now farewell ; yet 'mid the heat 

And faintness of the desert waste. 
Should friendship's cordial, pure and sweet. 

Bring back the smiles which toil has chased — 
The ^yine of strong fraternal trust. 
All purified from froth and must 

Of youth, that mar its perfect taste. 



6o LINES IN THE SAND. 

Let's plant an Eden in our breasts, 
Where we may walk again with God ; 

AVhere birds of Paradise their nests 

May build, and send their psalms abroad ; 

Where v^e the sweetened earth may till, 

Beneath the tree of good and ill. 

And in that garden bird will be, 

Called Memory; at eventide 
She'll sing a pleasant lay to thee : 

'Tis friendship's lay, and there will glide 
Upon the song-stream's rippling flow. 
One richest note, the long ago. 



BUILDERS. 6 1 



BENEATH the Caribbean waves, 
Where few and faint the sunbeams smile, 
Wee builders rear the architraves 
Of some majestic pile. 

The toiling insect turns to stone, 

The monumental tree doth rise, 
And ne'er it adds a coral zone 

Save as an insect dies. 

It lifts the billows from its head. 
It gathers sunbeams in its boughs. 

And 'gainst its twigs of white and red 
Huge navies grate their prows. 

A sound from out its heart doth creep, 
That floats its stony leaves along, 

A Memnon's statue in the deep, 
That turns its voice to song. 



62 LINES IN THE SAND. 

Within existence's sombre flow, 
Along the Hne of truth's dim ray, 

Our human hands are rearing slow 
Some pillar to the day. 

We build our souls into a reef, 
That rises through the ages sure ; 

'Tis red with joy, 'tis white with grief, 
Life's currents wash it pure. 

Let ocean beat its flinty base. 

And dash against its crest sublime. 

It laughs the tempest from its face. 
It spurns the shocks of time. 

Yes ; something deathless we bequeath : 
Each deed divine, each word devout. 

Made hearts and lips of men, do breathe 
A tender gospel out. 

'Tis grand to change the silent will 
To acts, to perish in the night 

And leave a monument that still 
Gropes upward to the light. 



SUMMER NOON. 63 



Summer laoon, 

A STRETCH of green, midsummer's green; 
A stretch of blue, midsummer's blue 3 
A cloud between ; 
And, peeping through 
Its drowsy folds, a summer sun ; 
A swallow flitting overhead, — 
And Nature's humble feast is spread ; 
I scan her bounties one by one. 

What beauty hath the field or sky ? 
Can sunburnt sky or sunburnt field 

To heart or eye 

A rapture yield ? 
Yon cloud dissolves in midday beams, 
The desert heavens, dead and drear, 
Hang o'er a landscape scorched and sear, 
And profitless all nature seems. 



6-4 LINES IN THE SAND. 

Stay ! sunburnt vault and sunburnt vale, 
Whose patient gaze the spirit jars, 

Shall bid me hail 

Their fruits and stars ; 
For Earth shall smile through sheaves of wheat, 
And Night shall sprinkle stars like dew 
White-frosted, o'er the lawn of blue — 
Fit carpet for an angel's feet. 

O Earth, that wait'st thy harvest-day, 
O Sky, that bidest evening-time, 

Teach man, I pray, 

A faith sublime. 
Whose calm Hfe's summer never mars, 
A faith that views ere it achieves 
The riches of unripened sheaves. 
The glory of unblossomed stars. 



65 



MOORE. 

A HUMMING bird, 
That hovered o'er the honey-suckle's cup, 
By breezes stirred. 
And dreamed 'mid mists of fragrance, dipping up 
Rich draughts with its voluptuous bill, — 
Such draughts as burn in Nature's still. 

KEATS. 

A tender lute, 
Suspended where the gales and zephyrs blow. 

That waited mute 
Till life's strange music o'er its strings should flow. 
Then with its measures faint and strong 
Did mingle strains of finer song. 

SHELLEY. 

A cloud, that sank 
Its snowy spirit in the gorgeous west. 

And bathed and drank, 
While red and amber rivers crossed its breast. 
And, in the sun's fierce Ufe immersed, 
Forgot its life in slaking thirst. 



66 LINES IN THE SAND. 



E l^itttd'cattott. 

THOU say'st ambition's coarse desire 
Feeds every poet's lamp that burns 
A shore-light by this waste of years. 
Hast never heard of spirit-fire, 
Self-fed, unquenchable, that yearns 
To pour its life where Night careers ? 

Tell mountain streamlet that for fame 
It leaps from out yon rocky shelf. 
And bears its chanting waves along ; 
Then tell the spirit for a name 
It leaps from out the rock of self, 
And lifts its waves of torrent song. 

What though the mist that wreathes the rill 
Doth catch the flattery of the sun, 
And when he smileth, smiles again ? 
What though the vanity that still 



A VINDICATION. 67 

Clouds sweetest lives, — some vict'ry won, 
Doth glisten to the praise of men ? 

Thou hast not felt the vital start, 
Thou hast not felt the throb intense. 
Thou hast not felt the joyous pain — 
Of thought imprisoned in the heart, 
Of thought that booms upon the sense, 
Of thought that lightens in the brain. 

Thy childless soul hath never known 
The mystic love of holy Art, 
The mystic birth of heav'nly Speech ; 
From thee no winged word hath flown 
To warm the world with seraph heart, 
With cherub tongue the world to teach. 



68 LINES IN THE SAND. 



Cgntiall to tje Smfitng jFlame. 

While pronoiijicing a Passage fj'om the Faery Qtieen. 

LISTEN now to Spenser, 
Ah, thou heedest well. 
Naught could be intenser 
Than thy raptured spell, 
Nodding, dancing, singing with the metric swell. 

Yes, her lips are wreathing 
Something like a chant; 
Fast and deep her breathing. 
As when bards do pant 
With seraphic — Tyndall, this is poets' cant. 

Warbling with such frequence, 
Does thy voice translate 
Into mellow sequence 
All he doth narrate, 
Tales of war and venture, scenes of joy and state ? 



TYNDALL TO THE SINGING FLAME. 69 

But thou bowest oddly : 
lyuth* thou didst not heed, — 
Is there aught more godly ? 
Silver wins thy meed. 
Art thou then like mortals prone to vulgar greed ? 

May be when thou speakest, 
In thy tongue unknown, 
Silver is thy weakest, 
Truth thy open tone. 
Nonsense ! Hght selects the waves that suit its own. 

Never shone completer 
Rainbow thro' the shower, 
Never glowed a sweeter 
Blush on passion-flower 
Than thou shinest, glowest, elfin of an hour ! 

Oh, for some new Spenser 
Science's fields to glean ! 
Mysteries immenser 
Here than fairy scene. 
Thou, gay flame, art fairer far than faerie queen. 

Never yet hath fairy. 
Never yet hath queen, 

* The flame is indifferent to close vowels, but sensitive to hiss- 
mz sounds. 



70 LINES IN THE SAND. 

With a gesture airy, 
Changed her robes of sheen 
Into such a crimson, violet or green. 

May be thou art spirit, 
Thing I cannot name : 
'Tis not I that fear it. 
Is it not the same. 
Whether flame be spirit, whether spirit flame ? 

What is it doth win thee 
From thy station proud ? 
Spenser's soul within thee ? 
Speak it not aloud ; 
Souls but die, "as vanish streaks of morning cloud." 

But I grow a poet. 
What should here astound ? 
Doth not Science show it, 
Hath not Tyndall found, 
Sound and light are motion, poems modes of sound ? 



LEAVES. 71 



OCTOBER, 1877. 

A SLOW decay comes o'er the year, 
Its signals o'er the maple creep, 
The emerald leaves grow yellow-sere 

With amber, such as sea-birds weep, 
While here and there the amber turns 
To garnets, and the garnet burns 
Itself to russet rich and deep. 

It is the loveliness of death. 

Such beauty robes the soul, I ween, 
When in its grasp of early faith 

Its foliage dies, if tall, serene, 
Upborne against the smiting arm. 
It throws o'er every woe the charm 

Of royal tints before unseen. 

Yes ; there's a power in feebleness. 
And there's a glory of decay ; 

These crumpled leaves, in fading, bless 
The eye with a supernal ray. 



72 LINES IN THE SAND. 

And Still I mourn, when pines the grove, 
As when there comes in face we love 
A wrinkle, never kissed away. 

So, Autumn rage, I court thee not. 

I'd rather bear my vernal hues 
The whole year through than feel them rot, 

Mere theme for some didactic muse ; 
I shrink from character that grows 
By life's decay, by tears and woes, 

By what we yield and what refuse. 

Wise maple, did it shake its flowers 
Upon the earth ere tempests rise. 

Shake down its joys in painted showers, 
Like bevies of dead butterflies. 

Like rainbows trailing through the air, 

Ere robber winds come forth to tear 
The crown it yields with many sighs. 

'Tis well, O Tree, that we should ope 
The buds of fancy o'er the tomb, — 

That thou shouldst leaf, that I should hope, 
If I my dream and thou thy bloom 

Resign ere wanton gale and grief 

Strip radiant hope and radiant leaf 

From heart and bough with shriek of doom. 



THE MEDIUM. 73 



UPON his tripod see the medium sit. 
The Corybantes 'round him madly flit ; 
While Prophecy an empty riddle weaves, 
And winds disport them with the sibyl's leaves ; 
The Yankee Pythoness begins her toils, 
And in young Athens, lo ! the mystic caldron boils. 

Yet in cathedral or in Turkish mosque, 

In darkened circle or in heathen bosque, 

While trembling hands reach up to the unseen, 

'Tis well to bow with reverential mien : 

Where floats an anthem or up-soars a prayer, 

Thou treadest holy ground, thou breathest sacred air. 

Man's worship lives in many an odd disguise, 
His uncouth Babels pierce the lucent skies. 
His altars groan, like Cain's, with fruits unblest, 
His spirit roams the deluge, seeking rest; 



74 LINES IN THE SAND. 

And yet 'mid dark idolatries may hide 

Some verity most radiant when the most denied. 

We thank thee^ medium, for a lesson old, 

New preached, a truth freed from engrossing mold— 

The truth that Death strips not from man his all, 

That Life weaves bridal garments from her pall. 

That every star which sets in sorrow here, 

Above some new horizon mounteth, peaceful, clear. 

And for another lesson strangely true, 

Part ours, part thine, part old, and partly new, 

That mind and matter are but flower and bud, 

That life is one, though severed by a flood, 

That life ascends to life, and death is birth. 

And Heaven's face the lit, transfigured face of Earth. 

We thank thee for a secret treasure brought 

To light, which mind shall yet transmute to thought; 

Base earth that in the crucible's hot breath 

Shall yield its gold to Science and to Faith, 

Though thou, enraptured with a drossy store, 

Seest not the waiting jewel prisoned in thine ore. 

O ye that in the grave-damp wildly grope. 
And chase an ignis fatuus of hope. 
That strive and strive in fleshly grasp to clutch 
Those subtle things transcending sight and touch, 



THE MEDIUM. 75 

The realm ye seek, seeks you, in shadows hid, 

And on the eye dawns grandest when unsought, unbid. 

O ye that cannot wait the vision blest, 

The hymn of victory, the chant of rest, 

That stretch your arms across the black abyss, 

And sigh for angel love and angel kiss 

Until all palpable your dream-form stands 

Before you, to caress you with the touch of hands ; 

Though stronger than your sight the shades of fate. 

Your lost ones live, and, living, loving, wait ; 

Though not with clash of instruments, nor yet 

Obedient to the sorcerous planchette, 

They visit us, yet in some dearer way 

They come, and in our souls leave many an angel-ray. 



76 LINES IN THE SAND. 



REPRESS the moan 
And play the hero while the day-beams keep, 
Though on thy pillow tossing lone, 
Pain's stifled cry should creep 
Athwart thy sleep ; 

And fast, more fast 
Come hurrying fragments of some old refrain — 
A music from the sad, sad past 
Into the voice of pain 
That poured its strain. 

Be gay ! be gay ! 
The world cares not what blight marks brow and cheek, 
What vultures on the vitals prey, 
And their dark mission wreak 
With soulless beak. 



CONFIDENCE. 77 

'Tis better far 
To sit uncomforted at night and morn 

Than leave the house of grief ajar 
To hear, through lattice borne, 
The laugh of scorn. 

And in the heart 
Of that large pity thou would'st fain partake 

Doth lurk contempt, whose cruel smart 
Is keener than the ache 
Thou wouldst unmake. 

Yet it may be, 
When in the loyal bosom of a friend 

Our secret rests, we breathe more free. 
More tranquilly we bend 
To life's great end. 

Unshodden they 
Should be, uncovered, whom the soul allows 
To enter where o'er gods of clay, 
With cypress-shaded brows, 
It daily bows. 

The right to know 
A heart comes only after faithful years, 

Thro' sympathy with joy and woe. 
Thro' banishing of fears 
And wiping tears. 



78 LINES IN THE SAND. 



IDEALS are mist the sight that mars; 
Across youth's twihght mom they run- 
Mere fogs that gather 'neath the stars, 
And shun 
The hot gaze of the sun. 

Life is too long for thing of earth 
To stand forever on the skies ; 
Too short for fallen human worth 
To rise 
Up to its forfeit prize. 

With shattered idols all the years 
Are strewn. O perished forms of men ! 
We give you all a meed of tears, 
And then — 
The poor heart builds again. 



IDEALS. 79 

Yet trembling builds, nor builds so high ; 
As, when Judaea did restore 
Her fane, it awed the templed sky- 
No more 
With majesty of yore. 

As well bring back the Parthenon 
Time's ravished lip hath kissed away, 
As re-create a dream that's gone, 
Or stay 
Perfection's slow decay. 

The widowed soul, like Hindoo wife, 
Burns on the pyre where Love doth lie 
Yet like the Phoenix finds its life. 
And why ? 
Again to love and die. 

The type that once was a belief 
Comes back to haunt us with its spell, 
Comes vainly back to stay our grief. 
And tell 
Us that it never fell. 

resurrected type, thou ghost 

Of that which was, and died ! a while 

1 worshiped too.' The spell is lost; 

Thy smile 
Can never more beguile. 



8o LINES IN THE SAND. 

Thou'rt but a thing of beauty now. 
And yet, as Menelaus might 
Have bent o'er Helen's pictured brow 
Each night, 
To drink with mixed dehght 

Its gemmy rays, the cheated heart 
Bends o'er its treacherous ideal. 
And revels, — till the old-time smart 
Doth steal 
Through veins that still can feel. 

And yet these visions of our trance, 
That trip the brain as elves the lawn,— 
These fays that flee as we advance, 
With dawn 
Into the darkness gone, 

I think are glimpses, through the veil, 
Of sprites that lurk in heav'nly glades. 
It is our eyes, not they, that fail ; 
Man fades ; 
They're essence, we but shades. 



RAIN AT SEA. 8 1 



Mam at S^a* 

SOME hurrying cloud that in the bkie 
Hath dipt its wing, shakes off the dew,- 
And all the heav'n is ocean too. 

Some foam-wave sky-ward tost, I vow, 
Hath caught a rainbow on its brow, — 
And all the sea is rainbow now. 



82 LINES IN THE SAND. 



THE thought that throbs in Christendom's glad bells, 
Its voices and its myriad organ keys ; 
That stills the heart of trade on ocean swells, 

And points us to a world upon its knees, 
Must be a thought most catholic and sincere, 
A thought this mocking century doth revere. 

This is the soul of every bell's refrain, 
The burden of each anthem's happy peal. 

The text of texts. Art's universal strain, 

This hushes commerce, bids the proud world kneel, 

This the majestic thought — and ne'er the scorn 

Of men can overwhelm it — Christ was born. 

We leave the theologian's wordy strife, 

Dost doubt the dogmas of a Saviour's death ? 

Yet thou hast human interest in his life. 
For he hath dignified all flesh, all breath : 

Not Calvar}^, nor Olivet; from them 

We turn this morn and gaze toward Bethlehem. 



CHRISTMAS. 8^ 

Thou art a man ; and, whatsoe'er thy creed, 
Thou canst not hold such Hfe of little worth, 

Whate'er it be to thee that Christ did bleed, 
Seek not to 'scape the meaning of his birth ; 

That life to which the nations bend to-day 

Is all too grand for thee to laugh away. 

He came and went, but time cannot erase 
This word : " Ye're brothers, and your father, God.' 

Lo ! empires sink that never saw his face, 
And deserts bloom his feet have never trod ; 

From Bethlehem an inspiration springs 

Which wafts humanity upon its wings. 

For he hath taught the stamm'ring tongue of man 
The speech of cherubs, joy and peace and love; 

And he hath half revealed our Father's plan 
To link the severed Earth with the Above. 

So we may teach this language : to the soul 

Sin-stricken we may whisper, " Be thou whole." 

And he hath pointed o'er the sunset waves. 

Where Heav'n, like Venice, skirts the purple seas, 

While life's eternal tide its mansions laves, 

And o'er the lute's sweet pulses floats life's breeze. 

Is this mirage ? Is there mirage of sound? 

Mirage of music, joyous and profound ? 



84 LINES IN THE SAND. 

Were faith a mist, were saints enraptured all 
With a mirage, called Heaven, still, 'twere well 

To view this skeptic generation fall 

Before the chiming of a Christmas bell, 

And unbehevers quaking at this hour, 

As 'neath the pressure of some brooding power. 

Life's fullness is its fullness of belief, 

And doubt is but the mildew on the vine, 

The blight that turns the early sap to grief, 

And slays Spring's prophecies of fruit and wine ; 

For faith and knowledge after all are one — 

'Tis but the rising and the risen sun. 

There is an altitude whence thou may'st see ; 

May'st catch the lute-notes streaming from abroad ; 
But thou must hang upon the hallowed tree. 

Must taste the hallowed suff'rings of thy God. 
Then shall the cloud which billows o'er the grave 
Roll back, as rolled the Red Sea's parted wave. 



THE WEAVERS AND THE CUPIDS. 85 



EACH life doth lack some crowning grace ; 
Perhaps of figure, or of face, 
Or fortune's bounty, or the joy 
Of cultured mind or cultured heart, 
Or it may be the happy art 

Which sways the bold and wins the coy. 

Perhaps thou wantest but the peace 
Christ gives when rebel tumults cease, 

And Passion bears his gentle yoke; 
Or is't communion all divine 
With something thine and wholly thine. 

That knows the word thou'st never spoke. 

God gives to angel hands to plait 
Love-crowns, to winds of chance or fate 
To waft them down. Hence it may be 



S6 LINES IN THE SAND. 

That, spent with tearful striving, thou 
Wilt view on some unworthy brow 
The wreath the angels wove for thee. 

O weavers, know ye not, nor reck ? 
Your fairest garlands oftimes deck 

The brutal front, the bestial soul, 
Recall these Cupids to the skies, 
Or strike the bandage from their eyes. 

Or tear your crowns from their control. 

Too long, too long your sweetest gift 
Upon the vagrant gales doth drift, 

While skeptics laugh and cynics mock. 
A purer gift then earthward flows 
When v/inters weave their floral snows 

For hungry sea and icy rock. 

The sea in whose lascivious arm 
The snow-flake melts to kisses wann, 

And dies when for the last caressed ; 
The ingrate rock that never lifts 
Its thanks to heaven for the gifts 

Of snowy arms and loving breast. 

And shall the heav'ns forever strow 
With crowns of mingled fire and snow 
Unstable water, frozen clay ? 



THE WEAVERS AND THE CUPIDS. 87 

Shall not the thankless forehead turn, 

Shall not the thankless bosom yearn 

Toward skies as pitiless as they ? 

Yes ; love betrayed, or love denied — 
Shall be avenged, be satisfied — 

There's vengeance in the Heart of Things; 
And to betray, or to deny. 
Is but, betrayed, denied, to die, 

As scorpions die by their own stings. 



LINES IN THE SAND. 



iHneme antj (Sip is. 

Delivered before the Alumni of Syracuse University^ 
Jtcne 2j, i8y8. 

MNE.— "O times! O morals!" that the Sacred 
Nine— 
El. — Forever you're citing that Horace of thine. 
Mne. — My Horace ! Were he thine as well as mine, 
Perhaps he'd teach thee how to frame a line, 
With easy pace, yet dignified and slow ; 
The Horace of our Pope and of Boileau. 
But I was quoting then from Cicero. 
El. — Thy Pope he may be, but he wrote not for me. 
My poet is Tennyson, though even he 
Compares not with singers that yet are to be. 
Still touched are his eyes with a coal from the 

shrine 
I've built to the Future, and things half divine 
Sometimes on his sight their proportions outline. 
Mne. — The muse of Tennyson's a dreamy elf. 



MNEME AND ELPIS. 89 

El. — But Pope is no poet, a jingler of pelf, 

Called Philosophy, sordid and dry as yourself, 
A philosophy laid, like his church, on the shelf. 
Mne. — Oh, blasphemy ! against the church that bore 
The virtues of Pascal and Thomas More, 
Of Fenelon, of d'Assisi and e'en 
The wisdom of Jerome and Augustine ; 
The Church that guards Religion thro' the night 
Of eighteen centuries, and from her height 
Dispensed to men all they could bear of light ; 
Made Rome a captive, snatched her lore and law 
And half her art from the barbarian's maw ; 
That saved the Jew's and Greek's rich heritage, 
And willed them both unto a thankless age — 
El. — That butchered Coligni, and Latimer burned, 

Hurled bulls at the comet, Copernicus spurned. 
Mne. — Is Pope's philosophy to be unlearned ? 

What will your Future teach ? No God ? No 

soul ? 
We live, we think, we die as atoms roll. 
The ape our grandsire and the grave our goal ? 
What faith ? Is't that which Comte has decreed ? 
The worship of humanity indeed ! 
But where's the perfect man ? Is't Spencer ? 

Bain? 
Or Huxley? H^ckel ? Darwin? Tyndall ? 
Taine ? 



90 LINES IN THE SAND. 

The man of perfect heart and perfect brain? 
Fill up thy Pantheon, but let thy Jove 
Be one who taught them all how atoms rove, 
Democritus ; then men will choose between 
Thy Abderite and my sweet Nazarene. 
El. — My God and thy pontiff, my Christ and thy saints, 
'Twixt worship that cleanses, and worship that 

taints ; 
Thy Scotus, Aquinas, my Newton and Locke, 
Those building on sand, and these building on 
rock. 
Mne. — My Raphael, Tintoretto, Angelo, 
Murillo, Durer, Titian, Tasso 
And Dante, my Beethoven and Mozart — 
'Twixt these and thy — ah, yes ! thy coming art — 
Yea, Spenser, Milton, Scott thou must resign ; 
For all the Past doth love is mine — is mine. 
El. — My arts are far nobler than building in stone. 

Far nobler than marble and canvas have known 
My labors more lofty than friar can boast. 
Or bravest crusader on Palestine's coast ; 
My suff' rings more pure than the anchoret's groan. 
Or d'Assisi's agony, writhing alone; 
My artists are Franklin and Smeaton and Morse, 
My palmer a Livingstone, knight Wilberforce, 
My martyr a Lovejoy — Truth's herald, Fame's 
corse. 



MNEME AND ELPIS. 9 1 

Not rearing proud temples or goading the slave, 
Or slaughtering pagans, is glory I crave. 
In manhood grown taller, and womanhood too, 
In helots made freemen, in traitors made true, 
Is glory, the glory I crave and pursue. 
Mne. — Your rights of man mean rights of monarchs 
crushed, 
Authority o'erthrown, and peasants flushed 
With insolence, made rulers ; aye, they mean 
Red bonnets, confiscation, guillotine. 
Your woman's rights — come, Aristophanes, 
Come, Juvenal, Moliere, and paint me these. 
Say, have you ever by th' ^gean seas. 
Or Tiber, or the Seine, in bloomer ease. 
Beheld a female strive with Pericles 
In oratory, lead the legions on, 
Or in the pulpit rival Massillon ? 
El. — The Grecian might cite you Aspasia's great name, 
And state in her lover's oration her claim ; 
The Roman could tell you Zenobia's fame ; 
The Frenchman would paint without mock'ry or 

shame 
A shepherdess leading France's chivalry on 
With sermons excelling your famed Massillon. 
Mne. — Seen women lawyers through your fora rush. 

That only blushed to think they e'er could blush ? 



92 LINES IN THE SAND. 

El. — Thou'rt bitter as Swift, but I pardon thee still. 
Oh ! why must my good be forever thy ill ? 
Could we only bury this passionate broil, 
Thy Bible, my Science, thy Art and my toil 
What foeman could conquer ? what demon could 

foil? 
The past is a sunset, the future a dawn — 
A sun not yet risen, a sun but just gone. 
I would both might lumine New Eden's green 
lawn ! 
Mne. — O Elpis, thou, that in thy dreamy eyes 

A new earth paintest underneath new skies, 
That Paradise we lost canst not despise. 
El. — An Eden more fair o'er the hill-tops I see, 
Where man is forbidden the fruit of no tree, 
Where knowledge and life intertwined are both 

free. 
Ah ! seest thou not, through a rift in the cloud, 
AVhile earth is uplifted and heaven is bowed, 
A promise that springs as Christ sprang from a 

shroud ? 
There God is redeeming the vow that he vowed. 
When man shall be glory-crowned, now labor- 
shod. 
Could Christ again conquer the cross and the clod. 
We'd think that a mortal some Calvary trod, 
Or rather we'll know every man as a god. 



MNEME AND ELPIS. 93 

Mne. — Give me thy gaze, that God's hid plan perceives. 

El. — My eyes are my heart that sees not, but beheves. 

Mne. — I yield. 

El. — Not to me, but to Love and to Fate. 

Mne — " The muse of History is love, not hate." 

El. — And Prophecy's muse hath the same divine freight 

Thy tongue, O Hope, 
Is honeyed with the dew of thine own heart, 

And thou dost grope 
'Mid errors, singing what thou seest and art. 
Yet the loveliest fancy thy spirit hath kissed. 
Shall grow pale when the real its glory hath shown, 
When the long night of time shall surrender man's own, 
And a world rolleth forth from the shadow and mist. 

What though man's mind. 
So long imprisoned by his heart, doth seek, 

Now unconfined, 
Upon his captor equal wrongs to wreak ? 
Short the conflict shall be betwixt feeling and sight ; 
For the God-beam is light and the God-beam is heat. 
And nor knowledge nor worship alone is complete. 
But the heart yearns for warmth, and the mind yearns 
for light. 

What though the path 
Whereby man mounteth painfully and slow, 



94 LINES IN THE SAND. 

Is torn with wrath, 
And liberated slaves to tyrants grow ? 
For humanity's march, like the rush of a star, 
Or the sweep of a sea on its desolate track, 
In a strong wayward rhythm urged forward and back, 
Ever points to some goal in the heavens afar. 

Its shores and caves 
The grand sea of humanity doth beat 

In restless waves 
That still advance and evermore retreat. 
Yet — doth Tantalus cease ? or doth Ixion tire ? 
It uplifts, like a giant in bonds, its white hands, 
And the touch of its palms on the passionless sands 
With the throes of its bosom is higher — and higher. 

All storms and calms. 
Are shouts and whispers of th' Eternal Voice, 

That blend in psalms 
When ear doth blend them with harmonious choice. 
Then the aeons of God fall in stateliest rhyme. 
And the centuries cease the harsh discords they wage ; 
For the ill of a day is the good of an age. 
And the ill of an age is the good of all time. 



A STORY. 



95 



WAS it the touch of her fingers ? Was it the bHss 
in her breath ? 
Was it a music of accent ? Was it her fulhiess of faith? 
Gladly he listens and lingers; springs his numbed 
dream from its death. 

Maybe an ode or a painting, maybe a mournful remark 
Deeply had uttered his longing, — maybe a sigh from 

its ark, 
IJke the dove, flying and fainting, winging the deluge 

and dark. 

Something had hinted of sorrow, dimly his woe had 
revealed, — 

Told of a life all too. narrow, told of a secret con- 
cealed, — 

Told of an archer and arrow, told of a hurt never 
healed. 



96 LINES IN THE SAND. 

Whether his ivoe had been real, Fancy or Truth had 

betrayed, 
Whether his myrde had blossomed, he had been stripped 

of its shade — 
Loved he the true or ideal — ^loved he a myth or a 

maid. 

So the hid wound she had riven ; gently she'd bidden 

and brief. 
Modestly dropping her eyelids, bidden have strength 

and belief, 
Thoughtless of dart she had driven, thinking to shrive 

him of grief. 

Whence had her charter been given — boldly his woes 

to invade ? 
Was it a mission celestial, mission to bless or upbraid ? 
Yes ; 'twas a whisper from heaven. Grateful he bowed 

and obeyed. 

Scars on the breast of a maple, rifts in the bark of a 

beech — 
Scars which the sunshine can flatter, rifts which the 

breezes can reach, 
Heal as the air of new April drops its sweet balm in 

the breach. 

Was it the touch of her fingers ? Was it the beauty 
that brake 



A STORY. 97 

Out of her eyes as the moonHght softly doth leap from 
the lake ? 

Something that flutters and lingers, becks him to wor- 
ship and wake. 

' Did she perceive that a lightness rose in his heart as he 

heard ? 
Did she perceive a numbed passion start 'neath the 

wand of her word ? 
Saw she not beam a strange brightness, when the dull 

cinders she stirred? 

Ah ! if she did, she was human. Heaven shall judge 

her, not I. 
Is it a lure to be loved and, not loving, to smile and to 

sigh? 
Well, if it be, she was woman ; that is reproof and 

reply. 

Nature may gently caress us, lay her warm heart 'gainst 

our own. 
Yet, if alone she embrace us, wrings from our musing a 

moan, — 
Moonrays and perfumes oppress us, drinking their lush- 

ness alone. 

Nature, give me thy abysses, summits and tempest- 
lashed tide, 
7 



98 LINES IN THE SAND. 

When I joy's aches and its bhsses may with some fond 

soul divide, 
When thy hps, dinging in kisses, first have kissed lips 

at my side. 

So by her side he was learning Nature's deep muse 

more and more ; 
Stars on the blue altar burning, wavelets that sobbed 

on the shore 
Mingled their plaint with his yearning, mingling their 

radiance and roar. 

Oh! 'tis a blissful communion! witching alliance in 

Art! 
Hand in hand drifting o'er dream-seas, scorning man's 

compass and chart — 
Only a step from your union of souls to the union of 

heart. 

Step he had recklessly taken. Did she ignore it ? God 

knows. 
Views she the hope whose soft glory tinges the rill and 

the rose ? 
Hope from its shrine to be shaken, when the first blast 

coldly blows. 

He in refinements of thinking might with St. Thomas 
contend, 



A STORY. 99 

But in refinements of feeling she did more subtly de- 
scend, 
Never confusedly linking lover, affinity, friend. 

He could drink deep of life's fancies, feel the best yearn- 
ings of youth, 

But glimpsed the sky thro' a cloud-veil, looked on its 
rule as unruth; 

She, with a maiden's romances, owned a deep trust in 
God's truth. 

So for his light she was given; yet, as men frankly 
prefer 

True-love to fairest evangel, strangely her errand did 
err; 

When she would point him to heaven, he fell to hallow- 
ing her. 

When she would talk of a striving after the infinite 

skies. 
Mixed he with ev'ry aspiring thoughts of a princelier 

prize ; 
He would be saved by her shriving, making his Eden 

her eyes. 

Voice like the voice of September, lips like the cherries 
of June 



lOO LINES IN THE SAND. 

Ne'er were designed for our teachers; I their sweet 

preaching impugn ! 
When they are mute, we remember only the singer and 

tune. 

Could we through glances that haunt us — through the 
eye's warm, liquid wave, 

Look where the soul, like a naiad, hides in some coral- 
strewn cave, 

Glances that cheat and enchant us, often would cease 
to enslave. 

When in fair cheeks float and hover heart-flames — red 

jets from life's tide. 
Signals some fire that uncover, gladness, shame, passion 

or pride, 
Let us be lenient to lover, should he too swiftly decide. 

Ah! the presumptuous bosom well for its trust shall 

atone. 
Paying for joys it hath stolen out of the joys it doth 

own. 
Drink then their light till thou lose them, turning in 

silence to stone. 

If she had glimpsed his devotion through the thin veil 
that it wove, 



A STORY. lOI 

If she looked in where shy Passion still with its sighs 

feebly strove, 
Well did she mask her emotion 'gainst the keen glances 

of love. 

Proud swells the soul of Eve's daughter, when for her 

troth we entreat ; 
Man, her betrayer, oppressor, captive now, falls at her 

feet, 
Tasting the pains he hath brought her, craving her 

mercy. 'Tis meet. 

Had he not willed, Schopenhauer, he had not suffered, 

you say. 
Will is not all of hfe's power; still the fierce pulses 

must play, 
Tho' the will cringe, tho' it cower — vile as its coffin of 

clay. 

Had he defied Love's imperium, Pain had not found 

him afresh. 
Had he withstood, were he human — mingling of fire 

and of flesh ? 
And he had lost the delirium of a brief month in his 

mesh. 

Who on this thirsty Sahara cheated by any sweet thing, 
Would from life's meagemess banish mem'ry of song- 
bird or spring, 



102 LINES IN THE SAND. 

Though the bright mere proved a Mara, and the shy 
warbler took wing. 

So while the years in grand column ope from their ca- 
lyxes dim, 

Still will he bless the glad nectar spilled as he bent o'er 
its brim. 

Holding Love's spell true and solemn, for it once hov- 
ered o'er him. 

Hast thou not wept o'er some casket, where a crushed 

jewel was laid ? 
Ah ! thy gaze shrinks when I ask it ; quivering voice 

doth evade. 
But thro' the mirth that would mask it stands the souls' 

tempest betrayed. 

Didst thou rise up from thy sorrow, clearing the debris 

anew. 
On a foundation less narrow rearing a temple more 

true. 
Roofed by God's measureless Morrow, walled by his 

battlements blue ? 

Living, not dying's heroic, when the tired spirit would 

sleep ; 
Pouring life's wine to the weary — only the bitter to 

keep— 



A STORY. 103 

Scorning death's voice like a stoic, tho' its waves drift 
still and deep. 



Sunset — and richer, intenser glows the red goblet of 
wine 

Night to her purple lips presseth, while o'er her shadow- 
wrapt shrine 

Swings a gold cloud like a censer, wafting a vapor 
divine. 

And by the river he paceth, shunning a visage of fear, 
While stranger gleams than of sunset melt in a duskness 

more drear 
Than down the changeful tide chaseth daylight's last 

shimmering spear. 

What is it falls like a twilight, gath'ring to grandeur of 

gloom, 
Speaks, ere the future has spoken: "Hope, be thou 

draped for the tomb," 
Closes the soul's open skylight with a grim deadlight 

of doom ? 

He felt that twilight — grief's token — drip its chill dew 

on his soul, ' 
He heard a sentence unspoken forth its dread rhetoric 

roll, 



104 LINES IN THE SAND. 

He saw a barrier unbroken rise 'twixt his heart and its 
goal. 

Into the west em'rald-gated rolls the sun's parting dis- 
play; 

Sighing while pain his sighs freighted, watched he the 
gloaming's rich gray, 

Till she whose witch'ry he waited came like the dawn 
of a day. 

Was it the touch of her fingers ? Was it a tremble or 

tone? 
Was it an exquisite something, nameless, now faithless 

and flown ? 
Sadly he listens and lingers. Blast that was brewing 

had blown. 



AN EPIGRAM. 105 



" T N every man," says Sainte Beuve, " there lives 

_|_ A poet who dies young." Mine oft has sicken'd, 
But 'mid his chills and fevers still survives, 

By Flatt'ry's timely cordial soothed or quickened, 
And ever to the friendly breezes gives 

New notes, by fresh disasters thinned or thickened ; 
Still lives to sport with faun or weep with dryad, 

To sing a paean or a jeremiad, 
Until ye'U wish that he had died, or I had. 



lo6 LINES IN THE SAND. 



E Sonnet to ^ » 

jrpWAS a glance with tear-dew bathed and bright'n- 
1 ing, 

Then thy face was tranquil as before ; 
Yet my soul knows thine forever more, 

Each revealed by sympathy's brief lightning. 

What tho' Pride forbade the tears to start ? 

What though Pride upon each gleaming ember 
Scattered ashes ? Shall I not remember 

That my heart once looked into thy heart ? 

Not remember the imprisoned yearning, 

When thine eye shone tender and divine. 
Ere it shrank with drooping lid from mine, 

As to hide its incandescent burning. 

Ere the world rose up between our souls. 
And the heart had covered up its coals ? 



SONNET. 107 



E Sonnet to tje dFuture* 

A DEDICATION OF YOUTHFUL MEMOIRS. 

OTHOU that standest like some tall brunette, 
Whose eyes shoot star-jets o'er her dusky charms, 
Whose brow uplifts a crown of rubies, set 

In night of hair, and holdest in thine arms 
Time's legacies ; the days that we have met, 

But meet no more, we would to thee return, 
Like faded flowers. O Future, do not spurn 

These memories of things that haunt us yet; 
But take this trust of dying scents and blooms — 

Red roses of young passion, lily-leaves 
Of aspirations, white as angel weaves. 

And twist them into garlands for our tombs ; 
For tombs that will not ask above their clay 

More than a wreath of days long passed away. 



I08 LINES IN THE SAND. 



Co a (^oltifittcS* 

LIKE a spark of gold, 
Flash thy wmglets bold. 
Little fellow-wand'rer 
In life's mystery, 
Art thou too a pond'rer 
What this life may be ? 
Thinking while thou singest, captive seeming free ? 

While thy matin swells, 
Like the water-bells 
Which the brooklet ringeth, 
I should vain express 
Joy in me that springeth 
From thy joyousness; 
Nobler bards have blessed thee; — vain that I should 
bless. 

Birds have deeper ken 
Than the love of men ; 
Else their tunes were sadder, 
And their wings less free. 
Tell — and make us gladder — 
What thy secrets be ; 
Things the lark withheld from Shelley, tell thou me. 



TO A GOLDFINCH. IO9 

Shelley, like his lark, 
Sought the cloud-caves dark, 
Where his mystic rhymings 
Swept th' eternal dome ; 
Thy low, silver chimings 
Make the earth their home ; — 
And I too would carol where men's sad eyes roam. 

If thou'rt more than mold — 
Music set in gold — 
Than a gleam of beauty, 
Than a beam of song, 
Know'st thou aught of duty ? 
Know'st thou aught of wrong? 
Couldst thou wait some higher rapture, patient, strong? 

Would that we might meet 
By the golden street ! 
Thou should'st be my lyrist, 
When the harpers play ; 
But if thou aspirest 
Not beyond decay. 
Still in this rapt spirit thou shalt live for aye. 



no LINES IN THE SAND. 



AN D now my soul grows autumn-cold ; 
Its leaves, with shudder of despair, 
It drops to mix with other mold ; 
Yet one, perchance, will float the air, 
More deftly traced, more softly dyed 
With ripe, rich, red drops from life's tide, 
And win brief glances here and there. 



THE END. 



